Govt. mulls regulating and taxing online trading platforms

By Yohan Perera and Ajith Siriwardana
The government is contemplating on introducing a system to regulate the online trading platforms and bring some of them under its tax regime, Trade Minister Bandula Gunawardena told Parliament yesterday.

Responding to a question raised by government MP Mohammed Mussamil, Gunawardena said the government is currently looking at bringing in the online trade facilities under the tax regime.

“There is a Customs unit at the General Post Office, whereas there are no such units monitoring the online trading systems. We will look into the systems of other countries and decide on ways and means to introduce a Customs unit to monitor online trading,” Gunawardena said.

“The Commerce Department, Sri Lanka Export Credit Corporation and the players in the industry are currently carrying out a dialogue to establish a regulatory body for online trading,” he added.